Forbid
as little as possible, for to forbid is to suggest the thing forbidden.
-J. L. Spalding

It should
have been no surprise to anyone when drug education courses served only
to arouse curiosity and promote experimentation on the part of children
exposed to them. You don't discuss a subject day-in and day-out if you
want children to stop thinking about it.

To this
day if I try to explain the danger of drug education courses to those
who are lamenting the "drug problem," the majority will respond
with nothing but a dumb smile. Then they will anxiously try to change
the subject. Why do so many people want to evade the truth? Were they
among the experimenters of the '70s?

Perhaps
there is someone reading this now who does want to know what happened
and is happening to the children. For you, I am going to reveal the stupid
ideas and programs that were sold to parents as attempts to solve the
"drug problem" nearly forty years ago. I recorded my experiences
in several "Truth In Education" columns between 1973 and 1976.

FROM:
"Truth In Education"-- December 20, 1973:

During
this fall term large numbers of children in both Wauwatosa and Waukesha
schools have been arrested and/or expelled for drug use. The Mayor of
Wauwatosa is appointing a committee to look into the matter and see if
solutions can be found. I think he is sincere, but I hope he and the committee,
and whoever looks into the matter in Waukesha, will have the courage to
face the truth when it finally hits them. The schools have been and are
now corrupting the children. No amount of stern treatment of offenders,
no amount of investigation of pushers will do any good until the schools
themselves stop teaching corruption.

Last
month when a member of the school board in Wauwatosa told those who attended
a public meeting that a number of pupils had been expelled from one of
the Junior Highs, he deplored the fact that the parents wanted the school
board to be more lenient. He also wondered why a physician-parent didn't
keep closer track of his medical supplies. He wondered why parents didn't
watch their children more closely. It was a good talk, and he was right.

But
I was fooled. Thinking the board really wanted to get to the bottom of
the problem, I decided to speak. I acknowledged that it is sometimes difficult
for parents to see what is right in front of them.

It is
often hardest for all of us to see what is closest to us. Then I suggested
the same might apply to the school board – that it might be possible
that some of the teaching materials used in the schools could have a harmful
effect on the children. I even suggested parents might help if the board
would appoint a committee of parents to look into teaching materials and
report back on what they found.

That,
my friends, is when the room turned cold and I became the enemy invader.
The board members put me down in no uncertain terms. A parent stood up
all pious and self-righteous and said he didn't want the books his children
read in the schools censored by a bunch of parents. People smiled approval
and there was some applause. Not one person who was at the meeting spoke
to me after it was over.

Dear
God, what faith they have! What blind faith!

The
very next day a Junior High student gave me a book from the school library.
It was called, We Were Hooked. Look for it in your school
library. Check pages 16, 64, 92, 133 or read the entire book. It was so
corrupting, so much an example of the type of thing I knew existed that
I distributed copies of the most vile quotes to school board members at
the regular board meeting the following Monday. They were shocked and
promised to have the book removed the next morning, which they did.

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But
that doesn't settle the matter. There are more – not all quite so
blatant and corrupting, but there are many books in the Junior High School
libraries that give a complete catalogue of the drugs available and a
description of the effects of each. There are books that show all the
equipment necessary for injections, and there are books that show drug
addicts actually injecting themselves.

There
are books that take a neutral attitude toward the drug scene, and there
are books whose main point is that marijuana should be legalized. There
are books that suggest the most important reason for getting off drugs
is to be in a better condition for 'social activism;' and there are books
that suggest Yoga, Zen Buddhism, and sensitivity sessions as substitute
"highs." Is this what is called drug education? Perhaps it is
properly named. It certainly can't be anti-drug education.

Junior
High children do not need long explanations and descriptions of various
drugs and the techniques for using them. If it is absolutely necessary
children should be told that drugs are forbidden, but even this is dangerous
for to forbid is to suggest.

Bishop
J. L. Spalding, in a marvelous book of aphorisms and reflections published
in 1901 made a very wise observation. He wrote, "It is good to know
a thing, but there are things which the young and imperfectly educated
can not know, and the attempt to give them what they are not prepared
to receive will but confuse or pervert them."

FROM:
"Truth In Education" – February 21, 1974

It Looks
Like A Home Talent Show

Have
you ever seen a professionally produced home talent show? I've seen quite
a few because I used to direct them. The director comes to town with the
scripts, a suitcase full of costumes, and the know-how to put it all together.
An organization in the town supplies the workers and introductions to
local people so a cast and chorus can be recruited, advertising sold,
and publicity obtained.

The
script and mode of operation are the same in every town visited, but the
parts are filled locally. The participants in each town have the feeling
that their show is unique, but after the show is over the director travels
to the next assignment and puts on another show that is essentially the
same.

Last
week I saw a home talent show shaping up. It wasn't called a home talent
show. It was called a 'meeting of the mayor's Blue Ribbon Commission to
study drug abuse. ' The mode of operation was totally familiar. However,
the goal is not fun and entertainment. It is a money-exchanging, organizing,
power-grabbing promotion whose publicly announced purpose is to 'examine
the extent of the growing drug problem and ways to reduce it.'

To put
together such a home talent show requires some informed and a good deal
of uninformed cooperation in the local community. It also takes pre-planning
and scripting in the home office of the production company. (In this case
the Department of Health, Education and Welfare) The producers have to
be prepared to move in with personnel at exactly the right moment.

The
right moment is after a spectacular incident. A good kick-off incident
is the arrest or expulsion from school of a large number of teen-aged
drug experimenters. It is enough of an incident to get people aroused
and interested, but doesn't look quite so ghoulish as to move in after
a drug related death or really heart breaking mishap.

All
elements have to be ready when signs indicate the time is ripe. First,
someone puts a bug in the ear of a well-known official or public figure.
The official recognizes the problem and gets lots of publicity with a
suggestion to form a committee of citizens to combat it. The committee
is appointed and sworn in with fanfare and publicity. The production is
on its way!

The
main characters in last week's episode were the public official, the newly
appointed committee, two hired directors from the home office (HEW), various
reporters and interested spectators.

The
home office directors did most of the talking. After listening to them
recite their lines and after re-reading a recent clipping from the MILWAUKEE
JOURNAL I can give you some of the stated and unstated goals of the production.
They are to:

1.
Increase home office (HEW) direction in the community2. Pressure schools into giving students more and earlier
instruction on the uses and sources of various drugs3. Have local police enter regional arrangements and
submit to more federal direction4. Pressure local businesses to submit to drug abuse
programs for employees5. Exert pressure to legalize marijuana6. Establish centers for personal counseling7. Get increased HEW funding for education8. Gain support for 'child power'9. Get more HEW control over prescription drugs 10. Form pressure groups using middle class problems11. Popularize the HEW definition of drug abuse which
is:

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Drug
abuse is behavior, so designated by professionals and other community
representatives describing the use of particular drugs in particular ways
for particular reasons which are contrary to the agreed upon rituals in
a given community at a given point in time. The designation is completely
arbitrary, but, once having been made, the plans for intervening in a
person's life style are considered to be necessary and rational.

Erica Carle is an independent researcher and
writer. She has a B.S. degree from the University of Wisconsin. She has
been involved in radio and television writing and production, and has
also taught math and composition at the private school her children attended
in Brookfield, Wisconsin. For ten years she wrote a weekly column, "Truth
In Education" for WISCONSIN REPORT, and served as Education Editor for
that publication.

Junior
High children do not need long explanations and descriptions of various
drugs and the techniques for using them. If it is absolutely necessary
children should be told that drugs are forbidden, but even this is dangerous
for to forbid is to suggest.